


Resin, water, time

by willowthorn



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, long winter spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:21:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22329997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowthorn/pseuds/willowthorn
Summary: No matter how deep the winter, evergreens grow.
Relationships: Ephrim/Red Jack/Throndir (Friends at the Table)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11
Collections: Secret Samol 2019





	Resin, water, time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThunderstormsandMemories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormsandMemories/gifts).



There is the year that he knows that High Sun Day will see no melt, see no sun. Wind whipped through the university halls, howling in the weak light - sunlight through clouds reflected on snow, echoes of what the sky should be. He feels frost creep through the small windows in his halls, he sees his attendants pulling their clothes tighter around themselves, layers of wool carefully patched, their shirts carefully run through with thread to give just a fraction more material to hold in their warmth. 

There is a sermon. It floats over the wind, snips of voices in chorus, desperation and joy paired in a plea. There is an echo of His name, and it feels like wax dripped over his shoulders, down his neck, catching his heart and hand on fire. 

He stands on the other side of the doors, the old hall cleared out, the smell of wood-fire turning his stomach. He thinks of molten metal, he thinks of blood on his hands, blood in his lungs. He thinks of cold, cold snow.

Rosanna’s voice is strong and steady, calling for peace, for remembrance, for faith. This is not a punishment, this is a push for the community to grow strong together. To weather off the wavering heart, to bring us to new heights once the Sun returns. Every season must turn, every summer sun will rise again. This is the way it has always been, this is the way it will always be.

She calls for them to think back, to remember times of community in isolation, to remember the blessing of light but also the burning of heat. It is a question of adaptation she pushes, not the lack of summer, not the lack of light, not the lack of a God they knew so thoroughly was there, living and breathing, just as they knew Ephrim existed, just as they knew her husband Hadrian existed.

She calls for hope. 

Ephrim throws up bent over the courtyard corridor. He rinses his mouth with snow, covers all he can. 

There is a sermon where he speaks. Rosana’s voice fades to his, the faults in his voice read as passion, the pale cast of his skin a mark of a devout man matching a devout people also made thin and pale by long winters and little food. 

He spends the day in mourning, he spends the evening curled alone beside the single touch of Throndir’s hand against his shoulder as they speak in low tones. 

New rituals slowly take the place of old ones. In some ways that makes it easier. They don’t have the materials for what he once knew - no kites hang in the sky, no craftsmen boast about their goods, no feast of celebration graces their halls. There are candles lit from fires, bits of evergreen brought in from outside, laid on the floor to remind people of life, of ingenuity, of how even here, even with all of this, there were still ways to not just survive but thrive. Some people took on the practice of using them as brooms, letting the smell and sound of rattling needles drive away all things invisible.

The resin rendered from those boughs would turn to glue, or incense to help ease the stuffiness of the halls that hadn’t been opened on the few bright days they had. Some of the remains were saved away in tins, boiled to purity and added to their medical shelves. 

He speaks more and more as a Lord. By the third year nobody calls him Prince. 

He starts to speak of it in the fifth year.

They sit together, tucked together near the fire in the great hall. Red Jack takes up one side of the small table, Ephrim and Throndir resting on the other. Kodiak sits curled next to Throndir’s feet, warming his back paws by the fire. 

“I used to dream of Him.” Ephrim says to his soup, watching the thick body of it follow the twisting of his spoon. 

“I mean, you were called a prophet sometimes, right? It makes sense.”

“The last time I saw him wasn’t a dream.”

Throndir remembers the sound of crossbow bolts, the sound of rushing wind, the sound of a body hitting snow. Quiet. The heaving gasp, the pale skin, thin fingers probing for any evidence, any trace. The sound of horses. 

“No, it wouldn’t be.” He remembers the following night. 

Red Jack stays silent, his dark eyes moving between his two lovers as they bend their heads together, no words save for the language of simple touch, and slowly a story begins to form. 

He tells it to one of his smallest children that night, a story about a Prince and a God and a Ranger. About a miracle. About how one life bled into another, about how one day his life might bleed into some else’s too. He draws from rumors, from little snippets of conversation, from how Ephrim held his hand to particular parts of his torso when he floated through the hallways during holy days. 

It is just a story though. 

Ephrim laying against him, quiet and contemplative the next night isn’t. Red Jack watches one thin, elegant hand run through the hair on his chest, simple earrings catching the low light of the moon. “Gods are not so easy to get rid of, Ephrim. He’ll be back.”

His bed is cold for the rest of the night. 

Ephrim does not explain, and Red Jack does not ask. But he does not speak of the man he once knew again to his red-headed lover. He speaks of him to Throndir, though, and his story grows in clarity. 

“I don’t know what exactly happened but something… Just the day before, he was a perfect Prince, you know? He did all the things that I heard they did, he spoke to people like I thought he would. He said his prayers and everything, just like Hadrian. Did a little blessing before meals too. I don’t think his heart was fully in it ever, y’know? But it wasn’t… Something changed that day. Like everything just shifted.” Throndir picks his way easily through the snow, his gun over his shoulder. His hair isn’t as wild as it once was, pulled back out of his sharp eyes as he listens to the world around him. Red Jack bends under a hanging branch, horns barely jostling the heavy snow blanketing it. 

“I think he wants to talk about, but it’s like… Like thinking about it too much hurts him still.” Throndir stills, running his hands across the crooked lines of a tree, trying to smell the sweetness of live sap just beneath the surface. “This one’s dead. We’ll cut it down on the way back.” 

The garden opens. There comes a week where Throndir does not stray far from Ephrim’s side, folding himself into the schedules normally held by any of Ephrim’s retainers. Red Jack does not pry, but he waits with a pipe and boils juniper berries with his next brew. He makes it strong and bitter, clear as water. They drink it together, and Throndir lays on his back as he speaks, his hands buried in Kodiak’s fur.

“This sucks.” He almost laughs, rolling to tuck his head under Red Jack’s chin once they finally move from floor to too-small bed. “This whole situation sucks. I died, he’s dying, you’ve got your whole not-really-immortality thing going on. Everyone else is who even knows where - either dead or…. At this point, they might as well be dead. We would’ve heard /something/ by now.” 

Thondir’s headache the next morning gives him an excuse to lie low, curled in bed with Kodiak at his side. Ephrim comes to him when he can, Red Jack leaving him one of his patented ‘cures’ that smells suspiciously like the exact thing that got him into this situation in the first place. They drink strong tea together in the afternoon, pale light through the window. Throndir does not explain, and Ephrim does not ask. They rest their hands together. 

There are times when Red Jack leaves the university grounds. To gather more stories, some say. To bathe in springs, to find bitter roots, to teach his children how to read snow. He and Ace leave together, wading through the land as if it was a stream instead of perpetually frozen. Sometimes Ace returns before his rider, braids in his mane and a basket in his mouth - gifts brought to Throndir, or Ephrim, or both while Red Jack practices his latest story to whatever villager called his return first.  
There are small things, usually. Warm tea in the mornings, baked goods sampled before being set to store. Hands against backs, shoulders, elbows to steady, to remind, to guide. Red Jack tells Ephrim how it felt to have his arm regrow, how the nerves were tender against the void where the rest should be. Ephrim shows him what happens when he tries, carefully, to write with his off-hand. Where the pain feels less. Where it burns, where it all falls away. They lean together over medical books, take stock of tourniquets and needles. 

They decide against it in the sixth year, Ephrim’s gloved hand moving slightly as he presses against the flesh of his upper arm. 

Throndir walks with Red Jack more often, laughter muffled by the woods. The trips are separate from his time with Blue J, though they talk about the young ranger often. They talk about a lot of things. They don’t talk about a lot of things. There is still time for that, after all. 

There are times when the days feel black and desperate, even when they begin to settle into the routine of community - easy words, hard choices, long nights without more than stale bread. There are children laughing as they run through the halls, playing with dolls made of husks and bark. They pretend to be the people from the stories - swords drawn, a cape of leaves, a golden circlet made of yarn. 

There are times where they miss their friends together, times when they feel the slide of a decade coming to a close. 

They spend the ninth High Sun Day low in the mountains, a steaming spring making up for the shivers coursing through Ephrim as his unprotected feet sink into the snow just beyond the wet ring of rock around the pool. Red Jack’s hair pools behind him, head tilted back. Thronir waits on the water’s edge, little rivers running from his shoulders. The water does not wash away a near-decade, but the heat at least eases that long ache.

**Author's Note:**

> You ever spend a couple hours on wilderness survival videos? For fun?


End file.
